Arkham Therapy Chronicles
by MarcusJB
Summary: The birth of Harley Quinn emerges from a single therapy session as does a romance that will both challenge and diffuse the Joker's hard shelled emotional facade. This brief chronicle is intended to re-introduce the fact that the strength produced by romantic chemistry is solely dependent upon a mixture of strong elements.
1. Chapter 1

Week 7; Session 29

-The Joker

Friday finally arrived, fifteen minutes into the last session of the week, and still not a word from the Joker.

Dr Quinzel was flustered. The desperation wore it's presence beneath the dark circles of her eyes. She didn't bother concealing it. She didn't need to. The Joker hadn't so much as glared in her direction.

The Joker kept his violet sullen eyes hidden from her, fixated upon one square, pale green, linoleum tile upon the floor. There was nothing distinct about this particular tile, yet he continued to rest his eyes on upon it. He hardly blinked. In fact, he didn't appear to be staring at the floor at all. He appeared to be looking through the floor, entranced in a self induced silent meditation.

He had not offered any explanation for his silence. He simply shut himself off in the middle of the third session of the week. Perhaps it was a game of some sort, but it was unlike even the Joker to play such a cruel game on Dr Quinzel. They had a rapport. At least she thought they did, or were starting to build one. She realized that once the last therapy session of the week was recorded, the fruitless weekly report would be due. As soon as Dr. Arkham reviewed the nearly empty therapy pages, Dr Quinzel could be reassigned to another case. The mere thought of starting over with some second rate criminal brought Dr Quinzel to tears the night before.

"Mr. Joker, you've made it quite clear that you are upset with me, yet you refuse to tell me why. I have given this behavior considerable thought and what I've concluded is that you simply don't trust me. Regardless of the reason why you feel I have wronged or betrayed you, if you trusted me, you would at least tell me what it was you think I have done or haven't done".

The Joker didn't blink. He didn't make a sound, but his ears were sharply tuned in. They were tuned in to everything she said, every sound she made, every sigh, every change in pitch, every scratch of her pen. He heard the despair in her voice and it troubled him.

The Joker was a master of emotional control. He en-slaved his every desire and put out every fire within himself that he did not will to burn on its own. He conquered his fears to the point where he was no longer afraid of anything. But he couldn't look at her. He refused to. Her warm blue eyes were beginning to speak to him in a language he longed to understand. He looked forward to the way he felt her visually embrace him, whenever he smiled. He was hardly playing pranks anymore. He wasn't telling fanciful yarns, or dancing on any of his usual stages. His thoughts were one dimensional. His thoughts were simple, and so was his conversation before sealing himself off. Even though he knew he could hide his mounting desire for Dr Quinzel, he couldn't hide if from himself, and so he kept his eyes and anything they might betray focused only on the floor.

"But I can understand why you don't trust me Mr. Joker. I mean, here you are in a straight jacket, strapped to that chair, and here I am within arm's reach of the panic alarm if you so much as maliciously leer at me. "

Without another word, Dr. Quinzel stood up, walked over, and began to untie the straps of the Joker's straight jacket and chair.

The Joker remained still and quiet, but his mind was screaming at him to react. How dare she? His heart was racing, skipping some beats and doubling others. Half of him wanted to kill her the moment his arms were freed just to show her that he was still as ruthless and dangerous as ever. But the other, larger half of him was stunned and peeked with curiosity to see where his beautiful doctor was going with all of this. Was she insane?

"There now, Mr. Joker. I think that about does it."

Once the last strap was untied, she pulled the straight jacket off and threw it on the floor right atop the very tile he was pretending to look at.

"If this is going to be our last therapy session together, if I have proven myself completely useless to you, then at least know that I trusted you. I'm sure I am the first doctor you've ever had, or ever will have that has dared allow you to be yourself around them."

She was right. No one else would have dared.

"And now Mr. Joker, I have nothing more to say to you. We have 45 minutes left together, and I prefer to spend it in silent reflection of why I ever chose this career and why I wasted my time and energy on a clown like you". She turned away to stare at her Doctorate degree that stood behind a pretty black frame etched in red matting above her desk. She wondered what good it was to her now.

The Joker stared at his straight jacket, crumpled on the floor. He let his arms slowly sink down to his sides. His arms ached to move away from the unnatural position they were just freed from. He would have let out a moan if he wasn't still lost in the ritual effort to remain completely silent.

He looked up at Dr Quinzel with a soft wrinkle in his brow that settled into a look of longing and compassion. She was gorgeous, more so now than ever. It was as if when his arms were freed he was allowed to see her in full view for the first time, in sharper clarity. For nearly 30 seconds she didn't realize that he was staring at her. She had given up any hope that he would react at all, and then she turned towards him.

She had a small well of tears in her eyes that blurred her vision until she blinked them away. She saw in his eyes that she had nothing to fear, no retaliatory rage of any kind. But she already knew that. Then she saw something else in his eyes, something new. She saw what he was hiding. He wanted her to see it, he wanted her to know. Her heart wound up in rapid beats until she could feel it rising to her throat. His heart felt as if it just starting beating the moment the last strap was unfastened. Neither of them spoke. They only regarded each other. They stared deep into each other's souls until it felt as if they had already started making love.

The Joker smiled, and Dr Quinzel blushed, but she didn't look away. He stood up from his chair, walked over, and picked his straight jacket up from the floor. He began to put it back on, and then sat back into his chair.

"A little help here Doc?"

She walked over and fastened the straps behind his back. She fastened them slowly and sensually. He felt her fingers brush against his skin through the thin fabric of his under shirt and he audibly sighed. He could smell her perfume. It was rapture. He inhaled her so deeply that the very motion almost lifted him back up from his seat.

She walked back over to her chair, sat down, crossed her sleek sexy legs, and confidently grabbed her pen and therapy report.

The Joker smiled on queue. "Did I ever tell you how I got these scars Doc?"

"Actually, I think you did Mr. J., but tell me again, and this time I'll write it down" 


	2. Chapter 2

Week 8; Session 30

-The Joker

Nicolai, the Arkham floor warden, hunched over and began to strap the Joker into his therapy chair. As usual, he excessively tugged tight the straps with his muscular hairy hands, until the Joker was forced to grunt having felt as though at least three ribs had been dislodged. "How's dat my friend?" inquired Nicolai, in an intentionally insipid tone. "Delightful, Nick my dear, a perfect fit. Ya know, someday I hope to be afforded the rare privilege of gently returning your every hospitality, but until then, I guess I'll be seeing you…in your dreams." The Joker followed his coy retort with a wink. Nicolai, who was less than articulate, declined to respond and simply huffed on his way out pretending to be unaffected. The Joker began to relish in the pain he hoped to someday bestow upon Nicolai, and every other Arkham stiff for that matter, until his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of high heels clip-clopping down the hall in his direction. The sound they made was drummed in a perfect rhythm, and as the sound grew crisp and clear, he felt exhilaration begin to make its way up and down his spine. The door was ever so gently opened, no doubt out of respect for the moment. "Dr. Quinzel is running late Mr. Napier" coughed the oldest withered hag of a nurse the Joker had ever seen. The very sight of her forced his anticipated bright eyed smile into a near puckered hurl. The door began to close again, then swung back open before it met the latch, "Sorry, I'm a tad late..." entered Dr Quinzel as she began to catch her breath, "the elevator is out again". Her body, warmed by the 4 flights of stairs, kindled the perfume she had already slightly over-sprayed. The trail of scented air she left behind was enough to send a wave of what felt like Herculean strength wash over the Joker. He was certain he could tear himself from his straight jacket and chair if he so desired. "So, how shall we begin today?" inquired his lovely Dr, with her pen raised at a 70 degree angle, anxiously waiting to paint her therapy pages. "You can start by putting that pretty pen in Nicolai's ear". "Oh, I'm sorry, did he overdo it again, here let me help you"…she walked over and began to loosen the Joker's straps, and had it not been for his opaque, white, chemically altered skin tone, he might have blushed. "Better?" "Much...thanks". "You know Doc, I've been thinking, and you had mentioned the importance of honesty last time around, so I'd like to share just that, complete honesty" "Wonderful, that's a great way to begin" replied Dr. Quinn. "Ok, first off, let me start by setting the proper tone and declaration. You will never be able to get to know me by soliciting information through the generic bland questionnaires you've been assigned. They are all futile. In fact, the entire field of psychology is a complete and utter failure. You'd find greater use in making a paper airplane out of your degree, than hanging it on the wall behind you, as if that scrap of paper suggests that you could ever get to the core of anyone's troubled nature. Had it not been for sociopaths like me, the very word 'sociopath' would not exist. It is I, myself, that define who I am, and my every action adds to a reactionary definition you stay up late studying as if you could ever trend or map out my inner being and or calculate my next move. I practically write your psychology books for you. I write the very essence of a dysfunction that you can't begin to understand without my help. But have you considered that I might have logical, even _justifiable_ reasons for choosing my path? If I reach out in such a way as to expose Gotham and its winged crusader for all their glaring hypocrisies, then does that mean I am not of sound mind? I ask this rhetorically, so please hold your response. In our last therapy session, we didn't ruin the moment with languid words, and yet our hearts spoke to each other for the very first time. Scribble what you will onto those pages, but don't pretend for a second that you can ever encapsulate who I am. Try as you may, re-read my words, but you'll never have a noteworthy 'a-ha' moment. If you want to study human nature, read Descartes. If you want to study me, then experience me first. Use only honest words; hold back your grand inquisitions, and flush away your Freudian methodologies. Allow yourself to be vulnerable, and treat me like a person, not as an idea, or a guinea pig to poke and prod at with your useless devices. I can feel your heart from here, and I feel as though I am beginning to get to know it, without words. Understand that love does not exist for everyone, and there's a good chance you don't even know what love is. You may study love all you want, but until you feel it, you'll never know it. Love, for most people, is a need that gives birth to an idea, an idea trapped in an overplayed love song or a rancid John Cusack movie. Love becomes a label for lonely people to abuse. I am not an idea, nor will I ever wear any label, I won't _complete you_, you should already be complete, and if you're not, then love will rip you apart. I won't abide by any societal definitions and norms that pigeon hole my existence into a mundane trap. If you want to get to know me, put down that pen, and use your lips for something other than psychological regurgitation."

Dr Quinn had so very much to say, but she knew she didn't have the floor, although the Joker had completed his rant. He had torn into the core of her, and she knew it. What made it worse is that she felt more like the patient than the subject half way into his speech. She smiled, as she understood that she would never be completely powerless as long as he was interested in her. She slowly got up from her chair, walked one step behind the Joker and waited in silence, standing above him, away from his prying eyes. She slowly swung around in front of him, and leaned down to kiss him, enjoying the spark of their touch. As she slowly drew her lips away, the Joker, still entranced ,began to speak, but was immediately hushed by Dr Quinn's index finger which she pressed across his jagged mouth, forcing the words back inside. She shared one parting phrase before leaving him in silent reflection, "I think that's enough therapy for today, until tomorrow…"


	3. Chapter 3

Week 8; Session 31

-The Joker

Have you ever heard the phrase, "a necessary evil", interrupted the Joker halfway into yet another of Dr Quinzel's failed attempts to reach into the Joker's haunted past. "Ahh…yes" replied Dr. Quinzel after breathing in and out in an uncontrolled audible sigh. She was finding it harder and harder to be forced into a derailed line of questioning, and grew tired of the lack of compromise on his part. Why would he never speak of his childhood? The two decided not to comment on their first kiss during their last session together. They both felt more than a little awkward faced in each other's presence again. It was as if they each relied upon the other for initial commentary on the matter, and since nothing was said, the tension continued to mount. It was tolerable tension though. They both wanted another kiss. They wanted it very much. They just didn't know how to go about it. After all, exactly how dashingly romantic could he be in his current position? He was in a straight jacket, and it's not like he could get up and sweep her off her high heels.

"Good, I'm glad you are familiar with that phrase. I'd like you to consider the ironic implication when the words _necessary_ and _evil_ are coined together in harmony. You see, I am very much Gotham's necessary evil, though I never applied for the role. Without me, Batman would either grow superfluously arthritic or he would be forced to search out some other would-be villainous fiend to pin his imperfections on. I know quite a few people who would cheer louder for his triumphal exit than they would his triumphal entry. Good not only coexists with evil Harley, it depends upon it! How can you begin to define the yin without the yang? Like it or not, take me off the scale, and good as well as evil cease to exist. What's sad is that I am no more evil than Batman is, or any other cross dresser in this backwards town. Did you know that I received no trial for my last offense? I was deemed guilty the moment I was apprehended by an overgrown man in costume that bends and contorts the law any way he sees fit. I ask you, is the Batwing exempt through air traffic control? Is there fine print beneath each speed limit sign that reads "except for Batman"? May I pleeeease see his Gotham PD badge? Oh, I'm quite certain it's in his wallet, but how does one sew pockets into spandex? He writes his own laws and veto's others in his own private court with his own gaudy stamps and corny holograms. So I held up a bank, big deal! I didn't harm anyone. Did you know that the hold-up gun wasn't even real? If you were allowed to peruse the case evidence, I would invite you to pull the trigger of that gun. Just point it away from your pretty blue eyes as out would eject a harmless flag with the word, 'BANG' on it. I don't need a real gun. This town already imagines me armed to the teeth, and they practically will a phantom gun into my hands, though I've never owned one. Everyone is scared to death of the very idea of me, an idea that someone else took their sweet time to construct. OK, so I attempted to steal a little back from a government that is over a trillion dollars in debt as a result of stealing from everyone else. Now I will collect exponential punitive dust in this wretched Asylum to make everyone in town sleep a little better, as if evil could be written off or contained in any cast away cell. This town is nothing more than a huge hypocritical parent that instructs their citizens and children to; 'do as I say' and 'not as I do', and I'm sorry that I'm not sorry for having the courage to speak the truth through my actions." The Joker was riled at this point, so much so that he forgot Dr. Quinzel was even there. He collected himself, and apologized. "Sorry Doc, I tend to lose myself on that soap box of mine sometimes".

"I am pretty sure I have the security clearance to peruse any and all files and case evidence if I feel it will help provide therapeutic clarity", assured Dr. Quinzel. "Aren't you the least bit leery of being perceived as developing an unconventional bias towards me? Shouldn't you shy away from me like the rest of the Gotham sheep?" inquired the Joker in a rather sultry tone. "No, it won't appear that I am on your side in any way shape or…." "Please…." interrupted the Joker yet again, this time in a deliberately snide tone. "I really wish you wouldn't brashly shut me off and on like that, as if I'm some part of your degenerate crew that you can bully around one minute, and lock lips with the other!" So she did bring it up the kiss after all! She felt that their kiss should by right grant her certain emotional rights that were not to be transgressed, and she was correct. The Joker eased his manipulative tone, and remembered that he was dealing with a fragile woman after all. "I'm sorry, I'm just, well, I don't think I've ever had anyone on my side before, ever since my Mother…" The Joker pretended to cut himself short through an exhausting emotional response that alluded to a childhood so horribly repressed that it would take only the most skilled therapist to stealthily unpack it. He was nearly disgusted with how easy it was to tug at the strings of his Dr's heart. Dr Quinzel hugged the Joker before bidding him farewell, this time with an understanding kiss on the cheek before she walked away invigorated with new confidence and curiosity. Meanwhile, Bob, one of the more trustworthy members of the Joker's crew opened his latest cryptic poem that was postmarked two days prior, penned in his sinister Boss's hand. Bob skipped stanzas and circled back to others after key sequential words were pin pointed, piecing the intended message together in the exacting manner by which the Joker had taught him. Minutes after reading the first letter of each word in its new horizontal configuration, Bob quickly set out to bribe one of the many Gotham cops on the take to carry out the Joker's request:

**S**ubtle

**W**ars

**I**mplode

**T**ogether

**C**rushing

**H**ope

**C**andlelit

**A**sunder

**S**acred

**E**nvelope

**W**e

**E**nter

**A**nother

**P**uzzling

**O**minous

**N**ight

**W**ithout

**I**mplications

**T**heological

**H**eight

**F**eigned

**L**amentations

**A**pathy's

**G**uess

**G**otham's

**U**ndertaking

**N**astiness


End file.
